


Lento Assai (Prelude No. 6)

by abogadobarba (daltonfightclub)



Series: Preludes [1]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Bisexual Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Comfort Reading, Drinking & Talking, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Episode: s19e13 The Undiscovered Country, Pre-Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr., Rafael is actually just a teddy bear, Slow Burn, Sweet Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 02:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19286416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daltonfightclub/pseuds/abogadobarba
Summary: “You always did want to be my hero,” Rafael says, pushing them closer, though not unkindly, toward some unspoken truth. “Who knew it’d be saving me from shards of glass and stained hands and not, oh, I don’t know, a bullet through the chest?"OR the one in which Sonny and Rafael never get together ... until they do.





	Lento Assai (Prelude No. 6)

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I'd like to introduce the world to my first story for these two, which was largely inspired not only by the men themselves, but by some of the incredible works by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic) and leslielol. I'd like to thank them, and all the many amazing writers whose works I've been reading the past few weeks, for their incredible creativity and ongoing commitment to the cause (the cause being, of course, our starved sanity). I can only hope I've done right by these characters half as well as you have.
> 
> This story has kind of been tugging at my periphery since I started diving into barisi land. As I was reading, I couldn't help but feel like, though the stories are often expansive and imaginative, not so many characterize Rafael and Sonny as real, breathing human adults who are kind of old enough to – in the words of fin tutuola – know what's up. So, that's kind of what this. I hope.
> 
> As I said, this is the first story I've written for them, and the first in the world of fanfic for a very, very long time, so I'm glad to just be here and contributing. Note the rating is mostly for canonical descriptions of violence, but nothing too bad. I would greatly appreciate any comments or feedback you might have, and if you see any errors, please do let me know!
> 
> Oh, also, I definitely meant to write this from Barba's POV, but somehow Sonny just wouldn't leave me alone. No one's surprised. Please see the end notes for more on the title. Enjoy!

As it happens, they don’t get together in the wake of Dodd’s funeral after all.  

They don’t get together as a result of death threats, nor promises of protection; not after late nights spent squabbling over thin cases with dubious evidence; not even under Forlini’s dim lights with a nightcap and a healthy side of lament in hand.

Sure, they share in these things knowingly and sometimes even unapologetically – they work together, and closely at that, for years – and though the mutual respect and admiration is hard-earned, it doesn’t lay the foundation for much more than a few missed moments and longing looks when a back is turned or a head bowed.

No, it’s not a union born from violence and bloodshed, nor frustration and self-pity. They never make it far enough to have an epic or clandestine relationship replete with stolen glances and shared secrets. They push buttons and needle sore spots and sometimes even leave bruises, but they don’t lock doors or communicate with their eyes or hide intent under convoluted legalese. They’re much too pragmatic for that, entrenched so deeply in the everyday horrors they witness that anything short of intimacy as an agreement, a productive contract, something to be negotiated and mutually beneficial, simply does not present appeal nor even register on their otherwise hectic docket of personal and professional affairs.  

There’s no conflict of interest or conservative family values or repressed religious anguish that keeps them apart. Occasionally, there are lovers, to be generous, or fleeting trysts, to be accurate, but never each other and none so meaningful as to warrant public declaration.

It’s not a sense of professional propriety nor a lack of curiosity that holds their desires at bay: if pressed or plied with liquor, both would likely confess to more than a few lonely nights lost to untoward thoughts of the other, drowned in bed sheets and strong whiskey and the wrong hands. That’s not the issue, never was.

When all is said and done, it’s really not a wonder they never manage to indulge in the other, together, as a guilty pleasure or even a motion of discovery: both men, so consumed by their work and their sense of duty and their righteous indignation, would nary be willing to wallow in such frivolities – not anymore, not at their age, not when that energy and emotional labor would be better employed on cases or victims or at family dinners with nieces and nephews, both of blood and of circumstance, who may be fatherless but never want for love.

Simply put, it’s life that keeps them apart – the life lived between search warrants and office visits and dirty priests and lifeless infants lying in hospital rooms. In the end, it’s life that once brought them together as colleagues, as crusaders, and most importantly, as friends; it’s life that carved out a place not for exploration and romance but for disappointment and solitude; it’s life that made them miss the mark, again and again, until both abandoned any attempt to find their aim.

In short, life brought them together many years ago, kept them in each other’s orbit for so long, sent them spiraling to opposite ends of the universe, and it’s life that brings them together again now, some many months after an unceremonious exit from the district attorney’s office, a departure which left no space for goodbyes or future plans or hopeful confessions.

Life, and more specifically, a jar of spilled tomato sauce, is what brings them together once more.

 

*****

 

Sonny would be the first to tell you that he has seen _a lot_ of unusual and especially heinous things in his almost four decades on this earth: some truly fucked up bodies, naked and flayed, left for crows to ravage atop hot asphalt; severed arms and legs washed ashore and feasted on by water fleas and river eels; fragments of a toddler’s skull sprayed across hardwood floors; the Mets losing the World Series at home in extra innings after five lackluster games.

Needless to say, there is no end to the abject terrors faced by an average person living in New York, least of all a cop, least of all a Special Victims detective with a penchant for sticking his nose in business others dare not touch.

That is why Dominick “Call Me Sonny” Carisi Jr., long thought to be immune to the perils of blood-induced nausea, is startled to find himself with wobbly knees and a bit of a light head at the sight of thick, chunky crimson pooling on the floor of a Citarella Gourmet market at the corner of Sixth Ave. and West 9th in the Village.

He hasn’t been this affected, murder scene or not, since he was fresh off the beat in Homicide. He might even laugh at the thought if he wasn’t so embarrassed about involuntarily clutching the shelf beside him, knocking over a few boxes of whole wheat farfalle in the process. He’s supposed to be a _cop_ , for Christ’s sake.

To be fair, it wasn’t so much the distinctly not-blood mess that caused his limbs to tangle themselves in the pasta as if he were once again a prepubescent giraffe trying to wrap his too-long arms around a baseball bat; it was the man clearly responsible for the mess, the one Sonny saw when he rounded the aisle to see after the commotion, the one who is standing stock-still between cans of pitted calamatas and smoked sardines, caught quite literally red-handed, holding the offending top of a broken jar of tomato sauce, blinking back at Sonny with a baffled look on his face like he doesn’t know how he ended up in this particular wrinkle in time.

_Life,_ Sonny wants to tell him, _life happened._

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Sonny says instead with a low whistle of disbelief. “Never woulda expected to run into you at the scene of the crime, Counselor.” He pauses, “At least not after, y’know.” 

Okay, admittedly not the smoothest start, but it does buy Sonny enough time to regain control of his limbs. He tucks them at his sides, wayward hands in his pockets, safe from any more sundry casualties. “And definitely wouldn’t have made you for a fake _parmigiano_ guy. Truth be told, always thought you had better taste than that.” 

“I don’t,” Rafael starts, mouth gaping, brow creased.“I don’t know what happened?” he tries, holding up the fractured glass as evidence or explanation for his uncharacteristic befuddlement.

Sonny watches as the confusion morphs into a practiced glare, the surprise disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived. Rafael’s now staring at the jar with such acute accusation that Sonny can almost hear him saying, “ _The People would like to introduce Exhibit 12_ _into evidence._ ” It stirs a well-worn melancholy somewhere deep in his gut, a forgotten warmth that tumbles and blooms and threatens to crawl up the back of his throat.

“Oh. _Oh_ , jeez,” Sonny says, eyes going owlish as he remembers himself and his station, retreating back into rote protocol and threat assessment. “Are you okay?” he asks, moving towards Rafael in careful measure, much like he would an undetonated bomb, and hasn’t _that_ just always been their way? 

“It didn’t cut you, did it? I mean, I know I’m a professional and all but there’s a lot going on here,” he gestures to the mess on the floor, to the unfortunate spray on Rafael’s pants, to the stained cuff of that very expensive coat – the charcoal one with the black velvet collar, the one that was always Sonny’s favorite, the one that Sonny never got a chance to touch. “And I kinda can’t tell if that’s all sauce or blood or what.”

Rafael blinks once, twice, and Sonny would testify in a court of law that he witnessed the moment Rafael’s soul returned to his body from wherever it hovered overhead because it’s the precise instant Rafael comes back to himself, covers that surprised softness with a familiar bravado, squares his shoulders, purses his mouth to fight a grin threatening to reveal too much.

_Oh Rafael,_ Sonny thinks, _are you mad that I can see you?_  

Rafael levels Sonny and his melodramatics with one calculated look, dissolves his sheepishness, makes Sonny’s head spin with the sudden change in tenor. It’s not unlike those moments when he’s half-asleep in the squad room, mindlessly scrolling through RedChan looking for tips, and an urgent call comes through: a 10-13, or a 10-24, or the most dreaded 10-35. It cuts away the frayed edges, decisively puts the world into sharp focus, reminds Sonny that he’s alive and has a purpose and there’s someone out there in the world who needs him. 

It’s a little like that now. It’s always been like that with Rafael really, what with his silver tongue and quick wit and devastating penchant for upending Sonny’s every thought. It’s everything Sonny remembers about those first few years in Manhattan, everything he’s missed for the better part of this last year, everything Sonny once loved about those late nights exchanging friendly barbs over amber liquor and endless depositions. 

“No, I’m fine. Thank you for your concern, Detective,” Rafael offers, his face contorting in disgust as he takes in the full extent of the damage. “I’m afraid the same can’t be said for these suede oxfords though.” He takes a step back away from the goopy pile and shakes off his right foot in futility. He’s not exaggerating; those shoes are goners and it hurts Sonny to think what kind of chunk of change it’ll take to replace them, if they’ll be replaced at all. 

“My apologies,” Rafael says, not to Sonny but to the acned and aproned teenage clerk who breaks their bubble, bucket and rag in hand. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I just picked it up to look at the label and then _this."_  He grimaces, dropping what’s left of the jar into the proffered bucket.

“No big,” the kid says. “This is, like, at least the third one this week. Must be something wrong with the shipment.”

“That’s ... comforting,” Rafael says with a heavy dose of side-eye, a look meant less for admonishment than for Sonny’s amusement. It’s a look Sonny knows to mean both, _Are you fucking kidding me?_ and, _What did I do to deserve this?_

Sonny, aware now of his apparent idleness, pulls out a handkerchief and offers it with a shrug. Rafael’s eyes brighten from the courtesy, or maybe from the familiarity, or maybe, Sonny hopes, from the invitation it intimates.

“You always did want to be my hero,” Rafael says, pushing them closer, though not unkindly, toward some unspoken truth. “Who knew it’d be saving me from shards of glass and stained hands and not, oh, I don’t know, a bullet through the chest?”

“Yeah, well,” Sonny tries for nonchalance but can’t help smiling recklessly: he’s pleased to be here, pleased to be of service, _so_ pleased to be back in Rafael’s orbit, if only in passing. “What can I say? Not all heroes wear capes, y’know?”

“I suppose not,” Rafael says with feigned consideration, “but _you_ definitely would, if it was part of the standard issue uniform.”

“You got me there, Counselor. You got me there.”

Bucket boy shuffles away then, forcing Sonny to take a step back to allow for a wide berth. Rafael’s suit might be trashed but hell if he’s going to sacrifice his beloved camel coat for some flavorless, acidic tomato sauce. Not today, not on Nonna Valentina’s grave, _thank you very much._

“So,” Rafael says, calling Sonny’s attention back to the absurdity of the occasion. 

“So,” Sonny echoes.

It’d be so easy to let the words tumble out, to fill the space between them with anecdotes about Fin’s gaming, and Noah’s robots, and the new ADA’s _machismo_ , something he suspects Rafael would find laughable, if not outright pathetic. They could just pick up where they left off: congenial banter; teasing that takes them to the edge of precarious intent, never further. They could pretend that nothing’s changed, that nothing ever needed to change, that they’re both just as prudent and guarded as they were before everything fell apart, but the months of radio silence left Sonny with an Inquisition’s worth of curiosity and a not-unnoticeable chip on his shoulder, so no, he’s not going to let Rafael off that easy.

Rafael sighs through his own smile, ducking his head and running a hand through his hair. It’s an amateur’s tell really, especially on someone so normally buttoned-up, and Sonny is pleased as punch to think that Rafael is sharing in his disbelief, his delight, his gratitude to the universe for bringing them both here to this aisle, on this evening, in this city, to do nothing but look at each other bashfully like the goddamn schoolboys that they apparently are.

“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” Rafael asks, though Sonny’s fairly certain he means, _Would you like to leave with me?_

“Who, me?” Sonny says with a hand drawn to his chest, looking around the empty aisle with comical exaggeration. Rafael rolls his eyes. “Nah, free as a bird. No plans. Not tonight, not this weekend, not ever really.”

What he really means is _I’m yours, if you’ll have me._

“All right then,” Rafael announces with all the ceremony of a judge handing down a long-awaited verdict. Sonny’s glad for it, glad for all the formalities and bizarre edges of Rafael’s existence, glad he also seems to be denying the obvious precarity of their situation. “In that case, I think the occasion calls for a drink,” Rafael concludes.

And then brazenly, “Or three.”

He folds the sullied handkerchief carefully, containing the tomato mess and the whole of Sonny’s composure right along with it, and pockets it. 

Sonny smiles, wide and foolhardy. “Something to celebrate, Counselor?”

Rafael doesn’t hesitate: “I hope so.”

 

*****

 

When Rafael proposed drinks, Sonny was under the naive impression that they’d head around the corner to this little Italian place, Casa Apicii, which is more bougey than it is Italian, but close enough that they wouldn’t waste any time getting there, or maybe they’d walk up the street to Horchata, which is a little on the nose for his taste, but their tequila _is_ good and it’d be worth putting up with the tourists to see the look on Rafael’s face when the waiter butchers the obligatory Spanish greeting.

Honestly, Sonny doesn’t care where they go: liquor is liquor is liquor. Besides, he has more important things to worry about and he’s not about to split hairs here, not with the possibility of the night spreading before him all the way up and down Sixth Ave.

What Sonny didn’t anticipate, however, was Rafael stepping out of the store with new found purpose, sidestepping a street dog keeping its panhandling owner company, and throwing up his hand to call a taxi like a man possessed.

The display of enthusiasm is endearing – surprising, yes, but endearing – and causes Sonny to put his own hands back in his pockets for fear of where they’ll roam. He looks up at the graying sky while they wait, not quite in prayer but something close to it, and with the last vestiges of the winter afternoon disappearing in the distance behind One World Trade Center, Sonny wonders how the hell he got this lucky.

When the car pulls up seconds later, Rafael opens the door and motions for Sonny to slide inside. His eyes are bright, though a little hesitant, and Sonny thinks he’ll throw him a bone, let him know that there’s nothing uncertain about this for him, not anymore, not when there’s nowhere he wouldn’t follow this man.

Then again, those are pretty big declarations for a random Tuesday in November, even for a big mouth like Sonny Carisi, so instead he says,  “Careful, Counselor. Any more chivalry outta you tonight and I might start gettin’ the wrong idea.”

“Good,” Rafael says plainly as he scoots in and shuts the door with just a touch too much force. “That is precisely the kind of idea I want you to have.” The corner of his mouth twitches ever so slightly: another tell. At the rate they’re going, Rafael will have shown his full hand before they even make it to the second drink.

_He’s nervous_ , Sonny thinks, and can’t quite believe it. Hell, he’s downright _giddy_ with it.

“West End and 80th,” Rafael says to the driver,“and don’t even think about taking the West Side Highway this time of day.” The driver puts his hands up in preemptive surrender and Sonny has to laugh: you can take Barba out of the courtroom but you can’t take the objections out of Barba.

“Must be some pretty good scotch to get you all the way up there,” Sonny says.

“Hmm,” is all Rafael offers, but turns his shoulders to face Sonny completely, as much as you can in such close quarters, and cocks his head in curiosity. Sonny can’t ever recall having all of Rafael’s attention focused on him before, not like this, not without a phone buzzing or Carmen knocking or any one of the myriad of people or obligations that were always so demanding of his time. It feels like a privilege.

“What was it you’d always say?” Sonny asks. He tries to iron out his accent, pitching it up and curling his mouth around the words, the same way he watched Rafael finesse his speech for years. “ _Carisi, as far as I’m concerned, the city ends at 28th Street and begins anew at Jerome Avenue.”_

Rafael laughs at that, a brilliant spark of a thing, punctuating the stagnant air in the back of the cab. “You remember that.”

“Of course I do. Don’t act like that surprises you.”

“Yes, well,” Rafael needlessly smooths the fabric over his thighs. “Apparently, as it turns out, old dogs can learn new tricks.”

“Oh yeah?” Sonny says, not even attempting to mask his interest, and _god_ , he really did miss this man. “Wouldn’t I like to hear more about _that_.”

Rafael huffs, falling back against the seat with a pleased smile on his face. He turns his head to look out the window, and if Sonny didn’t know better, he’d think Rafael’s having just as hard of a time keeping his emotions in check as he himself is.

“You will.”

 

*****

 

“So this,” Sonny says, wide eyes darting from the worn leather couch, to the overstuffed bookshelf spanning the entirely of a brick wall, to the small mountains of papers and manilla folders strewn about a kitchen table, “is not a bar.”

Rafael extends his hand, and for one exceedingly stupid moment, Sonny thinks he means to take Sonny’s hand in his own. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, and instead takes a step behind to gather Sonny’s coat for the hall closet, which in Sonny’s humble estimation, feels exactly twice as charming as it probably should.

_Stick a fork in me_ , he thinks, _I’m done._

“You know,” Rafael says once he’s carefully wrangled Sonny’s coat and scarf onto a hanger, right alongside his own, and closed the door, making for a perfect portrait of familiarity. “Have you ever considered a career in criminal investigation? A perceptive observation like that? NYPD would be _so very_ lucky to have you.” 

Rafael trades in on the blow with a swift punch to the gut: he wraps his fingers around Sonny’s bicep and squeezes, a touch so innocent and yet so intimate that it might as well be a grip around his throat for how it steals the breath from Sonny’s chest. 

It’s Sonny’s turn to roll his eyes now, the gibe a little too obvious even for him, but before he can think of something witty and worthy, Rafael pulls back and disappears into the depths of a dark hallway. 

While he can’t help but feel properly chided by the teasing, it’s nothing compared to the effect Rafael himself imposes. Not for the first time, Sonny feels _absolutely fucked_ by this man, though perhaps not in the way he longs for most, late at night when darkness and silence conspire to console his basest desires, but enough to feel like his insides are turned out and on display for all of Manhattan to gawk at like last week’s gruesome crime scene. 

As he stands there in the entryway watching Rafael sweep through the apartment, tucking errant papers away and setting about the kitchen in search of clean tumblers, acting as though it’s not completely absurd they should be here at all, he takes a moment for appraisal:

On the whole, Rafael is definitely softer in a way, though Sonny can’t quite pinpoint where the hubris makes way for humility; his gaze is just as cutting as ever; his attire, albeit far more casual than the courtroom ever called for – smart, pressed slacks with a crisp white button-down, no tie, opened at the neck for no other apparent reason than to taunt – is still perfectly tailored from ears to hem; he’s grayer than Sonny remembers, but enviably so: where silver looks like a betrayal on Sonny, it’s distinguished, earned, _elegant_ even, on Rafael; his shoulders are relaxed but still proud; his jaw, which Rafael so often led with, through crowds and into courtrooms, always tight, always working towards some devastating rebuttal, is now loose and unencumbered. 

He’s relaxed, Sonny decides, _handsome as fuck,_ sure, but open, mellow and unguarded, as if of all the possible turns Rafael’s life could have taken, it was fated that he should end up here, in this delicate moment, with Sonny practically delivered upon his doorstep for his singular enjoyment. 

It’s nothing short of a revelation.

“Are you just going to stand there in the doorway staring all night or would you like to take a seat?” Rafael asks, breaking through Sonny’s pleasant state of wonder, shattering it to pieces across the dark hardwood floors.

Sonny doesn’t have to be asked twice; he makes for the couch, narrowly avoiding the sharp edges of the coffee table and tentatively lowering onto the seat as if one false move and the earth below will open up and swallow him whole.

“Though I suppose,” Rafael continues, handing a glass off and settling in besides, “if _that’s_ the kind of thing you’re into, it could probably be arranged.” He tips his glass towards Sonny like he’s Jay _fucking_ Gatsby and all that’s valuable and precious and worthy in the world is sat before him.

_Maybe it is_ , Sonny hopes. _Maybe I am._

“Oh, come on Rafael,” he says, settling back and resting his arm along the top of the couch, and _thank Jesus_ for those gangly arms that bring him just close enough to Rafael to thumb at the deep valley where shoulder meets clavicle, “you think I’m gonna give away the game just like that, huh? You think I don’t know that you like a little challenge?”

Much to Sonny’s surprise, Rafael doesn’t respond with a denial or a rejoinder or even an attempt at obfuscation. Instead, he leans deeper into Sonny’s open palm and smiles into his glass. (How Rafael managed to win the round and get what he wanted without so much as an argument, Sonny will never know.) 

“So I can’t help but notice,” Sonny says, sounding more like a nonsequiteur than he intended, “you moved.”

“I did,” Rafael confirms. 

“Care to share with the gallery?” Sonny asks, surveying the room. It’s actually a bit bigger than the old place (and definitely bigger than Sonny’s own one-bedroom hovel), but far less sterile. Where Rafael’s previous apartment was primed for convenience, this one looks keen to be lived in, lounged in, _loved_ in.

But that could just be projection, Sonny supposes. After all, he didn’t spend much time at the old apartment, just a few drop-ins with case reports or to check up on security detail, nothing warranting more than a friendly greeting or the occasional whiskey. No, most of their after-hours rendezvous, save for those few eleventh hour post-court sessions in Rafael’s office, were spent on neutral ground for reasons neither ever ventured to voice.

“Do you want the short or the long of it?” Rafael asks, sounding far less resigned than Sonny anticipated. 

“Whatever you’ll give me,” Sonny says, laying down the sum of his intentions bare between them. Rafael laughs, utterly charmed by the presumption. He shuffles closer, close enough to open up the wide expanse of his back for Sonny’s roving hands, and Sonny takes it for what it is: an admission, an opportunity, a reward, a blessing.

Rafael looks to compose himself, which causes Sonny to worry if he’s had the occasion to explain himself, and his choices, and this seemingly new, isolated life to anyone at all. His mother, probably, if the softness Sonny overheard in Rafael’s voice whenever they spoke was anything to stake a claim on. Lieu, maybe; he’d occasionally hear Fin, of all people, ask after Barba over the months but could never stomach sticking around for the response, always begging off for coffee or a walk around the block or anything to get him out of the stifling squad room.

All the fresh air in the city couldn’t stop Sonny from asking his own questions, mostly to himself, but sometimes to Rollins when his guard was down and gut full of cheap beer: was Rafael happy, freed from the shackles of justice and ethics and all that they implied? Was he drowning in his impunity, missing the work and the anguish and the consequences there of? Was he isolating himself in a city of millions out of a twisted sense of self-imposed retribution or just common discomfiture?

And most damning, in all those many months, why hadn’t he pick up the phone to text, to email, to call to say, “Hello,” or, “I’m sorry,” or, “How’s the crime fighting going?” or, “I need a drink. Will you join me?”

To be fair, Rollins usually looked at him either like he had grown a second head or was the world’s most pathetic wayward dog. Either way, she’d put him in a cab and say, “Go home, Sonny. It won’t hurt so much in the morning.”

He never had the heart to tell her just how wrong she was.

But now that Sonny has Rafael right where he’s always wanted him, warm and pliant as putty under Sonny’s hands, practically vibrating with the buzz of triple-digit scotch and the anticipation of whatever comes next, he doesn’t actually know if he’s ready to hear the answers. 

“After the trial,” Rafael begins, pausing only long enough to down what was left in his glass, “it was a little touch-and-go for a while, if I can be completely honest.” 

“Please,” Sonny says. He puts his glass down on the table, refills Rafael’s before topping off his own, and replaces his hand on Rafael’s shoulder, still and solid.

“It’s not that I had some big existential crisis or some remnant of crushing Catholic guilt to contend with. We both know I’ve lived far too long and seen far too much for that,” he glances over at Sonny as if to assure himself that Sonny hasn’t combusted from the mere mention of the Church.

Pacified by Sonny’s wholeness, he continues, “I don’t know how you’ll take this, I don’t know how much you know from the proceedings, but I wasn’t sorry then. I’m still not sorry. If you could have seen the look on that mother’s face, Sonny, it was,” he takes a deep breath then, and Sonny can see a tear clinging to his eyelashes. It breaks his heart. “I’ll never forget it.” 

They both take a drink, no doubt thinking of the many devastated parents and partners and loved ones they’ve fought for, and sometimes with, over the years. (And what can you say in the face of such loss? How can anyone possibly move on from such grief, justice served or not?)

Sonny’s stomach churns when the acid hits his empty stomach. “I don’t blame you, y’know,” he says. “Not that I think you need my forgiveness or anything, but I’m just sayin’, maybe I get it more than you think I do.”

Rafael raises an eyebrow, skeptical but with no real incredulity behind it. 

“No, really. Just hear me out, Raf,” he abandons his glass for good on the table, drawing himself up to full height, working himself up like he’s about to make an argument fully cited with precedents and case law and judge’s opinions.

“I’d never say I know what you felt then, what you must feel now, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have survived it all the way you have, but,” he places a hand on Rafael’s knee, to ground who, exactly, he isn’t quite sure, “what I do know, what I’ve learned from this job, what I’ve learned from _you_ is that the law ain’t perfect. It doesn’t know free will, it doesn’t know compassion, and it sure as hell doesn’t know pain. Least not the way we do.”

Then, Sonny gives in to the thing he’s wanted all night, the thing he’s wanted since Rafael first hailed the cab, since Sonny saw him across that godawful pool of tomato sludge, since he put their coats away in the hall closet like they always belonged there, together, the thing Sonny’s wanted maybe since he’s known him: he takes Rafael’s hand in his own, brings it to his mouth, and brushes his lips across the soft skin of Rafael’s knuckles. 

It’s a small gesture really, and certainly nothing compared to what Sonny _would_ do if he _could_ do anything in this moment, but it’s revealing in all the ways it is kind. It’s a lot like Sonny in that way, and makes Rafael’s eyes go soft and smitten all the same. 

“All I’m sayin’ is,” Sonny says as he covers Rafael’s hand with both his own, “you did what you felt you had to, and because I know you’re a good man, maybe even the _best_ man, that means it had to be right. That’s enough. For me, for the courts, for the God I know you don’t believe in. Okay? It’s enough.”

He squeezes Rafael’s hand and wishes he could share the burden of this man’s hurt. “Am I right, Counselor?”

For the second time in one day, Sonny finds himself looking back at a dumbstruck Rafael, though now the danger comes not from a jagged jar, but in the shape of an eager to please detective with a brash accent and a heart too big for his own damn good. “I’ll defer to your judgement on this one,” Rafael says.

“I guess there’s a first time for everything, huh?” Sonny says, a little bit smug and twice as awed.

“That particular notion seems to be proving out,” Rafael replies in kind.

Leaving his glass beside Sonny’s, he takes the opportunity to rearrange himself against the couch cushions, close enough that Sonny can feel his warmth over the dry heat pouring out of the fritzy radiator, close enough that he can smell the last remnants of his cologne and a long day in the city clinging to tanned skin, close enough that he can reach out and run his hands over the first bristles of a five o’clock shadow surfacing along Rafael’s jaw.

So, he extends a hand and does just that.

Rafael turns his head and smiles at Sonny, calm and content with such an ease about him, such an ease about _them_ , that it makes Sonny’s vision go a bit sideways. He’s unmoored by the access Rafael has granted so surely without question: to his apartment, to his past, to his body. It’s untethered Sonny in a way he couldn’t have expected, not this morning when he left his apartment to face another day of unknown horrors, not this afternoon when he heard a glass shatter in aisle two, not even now as he sits facing a man he once feared he’d never again see. 

“But I gotta say,” Sonny says with a softness he himself didn’t know he possessed, a quiet employed as to not disturb the microcosm of peace they’ve constructed in between these four walls, “it kinda feels like we missed a few steps here. Don’t ya think?” His hand stills where it had traveled from jaw to ear and back down to the base of Rafael’s neck; he feels a tightness begin to unfurl, and Sonny instantly regrets putting it there. 

“No, no, don’t get me wrong. I am _loving_ this. Whatever this is,” he adds, motioning absently with his free hand, “but it’s just a little ... unbelievable? I mean, it’s been years Raf, _years_ , and now all of a sudden, _this_?” He laughs in spite of himself, more of a guffaw of disbelief than anything else. So much for their little slice of quietude.

“It’s just, _fuck_ , Raf. Shit like this doesn’t happen in the real world, not to me anyway. I’m a little outta my depth here.”

Rafael tilts his head just so, in a way that says _you’re sweet_ , but it’s the accompanying silence that has Sonny worried; each second expands as wide as the isle of Manhattan is long, and for a brief, entirely unbearable minute, he thinks maybe he read this entire situation wrong. Maybe this isn’t their resplendent prelude after all, but just another catastrophic conclusion.

His eyes burn at the thought of it.

“Are you done?” Rafael says, a grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. Sonny just nods, fearing any additional words would only betray him further. “Good,” he says in a way that makes Sonny feel a little like he just got a pat on the head, though it does as it was intended and loosens the bundles of panic tumbling through his mind.

“You have to know, Sonny, that there is absolutely nothing sudden about this in the least. You’re right, it has been years, but it’s been years of this,” he gestures between them, landing a hand askew on Sonny’s chest, low enough to grab a handful of ribcage and hold on tight. “We just had our heads too far up our own damn asses to let it be this. To let it be as good, and whole, and devastating as this could be.” 

Sonny looks down and sees he’s managed to wrap one hand around Rafael’s neck, the other around his thigh, and Rafael isn’t doing much better at keeping his hands to himself; their limbs are a tangled mess and, if Sonny had been paying attention, just as Rafael said, he would have noticed that their lives, save for the past few months, had been intertwined in much the same way since the very start of it.

“And remember,” Rafael says, drawing Sonny’s chin back up with a gentle hand, “I have had nothing but time to think on this – years, sure, but whole days lately, just thinking about this life I’ve led, the choices I have and haven’t made, and of course, the _you_ of it all.” He smiles; it's so sweet and small, Sonny would say it’s as good as gospel. 

The room has fallen dark around them, but Rafael’s eyes reflect the street lights glowing outside; they dance in a youthful way Sonny’s never seen, in a way that makes him wonder how much is left to discover here in this room and everywhere beyond.

“If you really want the truth, that infernal jar of sauce did not just ... Pff,” Rafael’s eyes go wide, his lips puffing out in some ill-conceived mimicry of an explosion. Once more, Sonny questions why Rafael has to be so fucking charming in everything he does.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Sonny interjects then, his mind finally catching up to the conversation at hand. “Are you sayin’ that you, what, chucked it on the ground, _intentionally_? I mean, I know all the chemicals in that jar would have driven my Nonna to such extremes, but you, _Mr. I let serial rapists strangle me in open court and barely break a sweat?_ No way. Not buyin’ it. That there was what the big man upstairs likes to call _divine_ intervention.”

Rafael’s close enough now that when he drops his head in something akin to embarrassment, his forehead hits Sonny’s chest. He lingers there in the warmth for a minute before nuzzling his way up Sonny’s neck, his lips leaving but a whisper of hot breath in their wake that sets Sonny’s skin ablaze. 

“No, you colossal idiot. I had literally, not even seconds before, been wistfully reminiscing about that _spaghetti alla puttanesca_ you made me after the shitshow that was Hank Abraham’s case, and then there you are, walking through that door, as if I conjured you by the strength of my yearning alone. I just about lost my fucking mind.”

The vibrations of Sonny’s laughter shake them both up, setting off a release of sorts, one that clears away any lingering uncertainty and makes space for something light, and crucial, and promised.

“Well if I knew that’s all it took,” Sonny says, tracing the path from Rafael’s earlobe to the hollow of his neck with the pads of two fingers, “I would have walked through your door a long, long time ago.” He pauses halfway, right on the pulse point, and grins when he feels it quickening under his fingertips. “Oh wait, I did. Like, a million times.”

“For Christ’s sake,” Rafael says, his frustration getting the best of him, just as it always has when it comes to Sonny Carisi, just as it probably always will. “Will you stop pontificating and just fucking kiss me already?”

Sonny’s smile is brilliant, a solitary bloom breaking through thawing winter ground. “Oh Rafael,” he says, teasing but reverent, “all you had to do was ask.”

 

******

 

As it happens, there will be lazy mornings in bed with hot coffee and cold feet and breathless confessions; there will be late nights with close calls and hospital visits, declarations of love made out of fear, but also conviction; there will be birthdays, and funerals, and celebrations – for family and friends and each other; there will be hard questions and growing pains and crises of conscience, though never long-lasting and none so ruinous as to inspire enmity; there will be _goodbyes_ and _good mornings_ , _I miss you_ s and _fuck yous_ , sometimes in the same day, sometimes even in the same breath.

There will be time for all of these things and more, not because they’re trite or inevitable, but because these are the moments that happen between traumas and heartbreaks and setbacks; these are the foundations upon which Sonny and Rafael will _finally_ build a life – together, with the confidence of men who’ve unearthed the worst humanity has to offer, and in its face, instead of a life of disappointment and solitude, chose each other.

Simply put, life brought them together many years ago, kept them in each other’s orbit, sent them spiraling to opposite ends of the universe, and it’s life that will keep bringing them together, in cabs and on couches, over scotch and rich pasta dishes, in all the beautiful and chaotic and disastrous ways that only life can.

(Well, life, and more specifically, a jar of spilled tomato sauce.)

**Author's Note:**

> The title is based on one of Chopin's well-known works of the same name, "24 Preludes Op. 28: No. 6 Lento assai in B Minor."
> 
> I highly recommend the version on youtube by Associazione Mendelssohn. If you haven't heard it yet, that's a good place to start.
> 
> "Lento assai," for those of you who might be wondering, literally translates to "very slow," which I think pretty well sums up the way these two idiots got together! I'm definitely no music expert, but this prelude specifically caught my attention and seemed to capture a solace that, eventually, gives way to a beautiful, moving crescendo. This prelude, which was actually played at Chopin's funeral, is said to "consist of a tender melody exposed on a phrase that repeats ostinato (in equal rhythmic values)," and is sometimes referred to by its nickname, "Homesickness," which I also think is a little more than relevant here. But that's just me.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading and sticking through to the end!


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